Those German language rules

[Doghouse Reilly]

I really want to hear from the German skeptics here....what do you think of the controversy over the "new rules" instituted a few years back eliminating the B (double s) and wreaking all sorts of havoc with tried and true grammar and spelling?
Now that the deadline is coming up and it's time to decide whether or not the rules should be kept, you must have some interesting opinions.
What do you think about government mandated language rules in the first place? I lived in Germany for a year but I must admit I don't know too much about the language "laws."
How mandatory were/are they? Do newspapers and publishers have to conform to them, or is it optional? What would it mean if the rules were kept, and what would it mean if they were thrown by the wayside?
Do you miss the old ways or do you prefer the new rules?

 

[Cecil]

I hadn't heard of these laws before, but I've learned from a cursory google that the rules are very controversial. Most newspapers are using the new rules, but most authors seem to dislike them, publishing their books under the old system. I believe that starting in 2005 only the new spellings will be marked correct in schools.

I also found this old chestnut, somewhat on-topic and always good for a laugh.

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby
English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was
the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's govt conceded that English
spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase
in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish":

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c"..sertainly, this will
make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up
konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words
like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have
always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the
horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the languag is disgracful, and they
should go away.

By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th"
with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords
kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no
mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech
ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!!

 

[davefoc]

I found this interesting. I don't have one damn thing to say and I don't have one damn opinion about it but I wanted to get email updates when the thread was bumped. I don't know if you can do that without posting something so I'm posting something.

 

[Chaos]

I really want to hear from the German skeptics here....what do you think of the controversy over the "new rules" instituted a few years back eliminating the B (double s) and wreaking all sorts of havoc with tried and true grammar and spelling?
Now that the deadline is coming up and it's time to decide whether or not the rules should be kept, you must have some interesting opinions.
What do you think about government mandated language rules in the first place? I lived in Germany for a year but I must admit I don't know too much about the language "laws."
How mandatory were/are they? Do newspapers and publishers have to conform to them, or is it optional? What would it mean if the rules were kept, and what would it mean if they were thrown by the wayside?
Do you miss the old ways or do you prefer the new rules?

The new rules are crap (IMHO only, of course).

But dropping them now, after almost everybody had surrendered and learned the rules, isn´t exactly a stroke of genius, either.

 

[BPSCG]

I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me dole and sorrow that I fail, albeit sith I am but a simple damsel and taught of none, being from the cradle unbaptized in those deep waters of learning that do anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of that most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend state to the mental eye of the humble mortal who, by bar and lack of that great consecration seeth in his own unlearned estate but a symbol of that other sort of lack and loss which men do publish to the pitying eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of grief do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when such shall in the darkness of his mind encounter these golden phrases of high mystery, these shut-up-shops, and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is but by the grace of God that he burst not for envy of the mind that can beget, and tongue that can deliver so great and mellow-sounding miracles of speech, and if there do ensue confusion in that humbler mind, and failure to divine the meanings of these wonders, then if so be this miscomprehension is not vain but sooth and true, wit ye well it is the very substance of worshipful dear homage and may not lightly be misprized, nor had been, an ye had noted this complexion of mood and mind and understood that that I would I could not, and that I could not I might not, nor yet nor might NOR could, nor might-not nor could-not, might be by advantage turned to the desired WOULD, and so I pray you mercy of my fault, and that ye will of your kindness and your charity forgive it, good my master and most dear lord."...

I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out from the station and got her train fairly started on one of those horizonless transcontinental sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that I was standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the German Language. I was so impressed with this, that sometimes when she began to empty one of these sentences on me I unconsciously took the very attitude of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words had been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had exactly the German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

Mark Twain - from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court